Escape Climbing

We exist as a company to enable the sport of indoor climbing. Our mission is to get every hand on a hold. We want to tear down the barriers of climbing by making our sport more accessible to anyone. By designing great climbing holds we hope to bring out the best in route setters, which in turn leads to a better climbing. By being a bulk importer of hardware we can drive down the cost of bolts and t-nuts which leaves a bigger budget for holds and makes building a wall affordable. By offering a wide range of training tools we give you that opportunity to take your climbing to the next level and push your limits.

At the heart of who we are, we believe in promoting a healthy lifestyle. Health is more than just fitness. Health entails a mental, and an emotional aspect as well. Climbing is a sport that is more than just fitness too. There is a mental aspect of climbing with the problem solving, and climbings social driven nature meets many emotional needs with our community bonds. Enabling the sport of climbing means we get to open up an avenue for happier, healthier, stronger people every time we ship a package from our facility.

HISTORY

The first Escape Climbing holds were made and sold in 2006. Founder Ryan Angelo fell in love with the sport of climbing during college, but unfortunately living in the middle of Wisconsin made it challenging to be a climber. He built his first home woodie in his parents barn (lead routes and all) but the holds were sparse due to his bootstrap budget. Having an art degree and no budget for climbing holds was a recipe for DIY holds. This was at a time where you could not YouTube how to make climbing holds and no blogs were willing to talk about it. The first holds were shaped out of clay, window calk was used to make silicone molds, and then molds filled with bondo to make the climbing holds. Fortunately we have come pretty far from the original bondo holds. In 2009 Ryans hold knowledge really developed as he managed the setting crew at Vertical Endeavors St. Paul. This is where he met his partner Richard. The two of them quit their full-time jobs and dove head first into Escape Climbing in 2012. Through a supportive climbing community, lots of friend and family support, Escape has continued to grow significantly each year since. In 2017 Escape purchased Project Holds and The Detroit Climbing Company’s hold designs. Escape also partnered with the Canadian company Friction Climbing to bring manufacturing into the USA. In 2018 Escape acquired Kingdom Climbing and Working Class Climbing to round out our hold selection. Our community has supported us in a big way for the last 12 years and we can’t wait so see what we can do for the community in the next 12 years.